


For the Best

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-22
Updated: 2009-04-22
Packaged: 2018-09-03 06:31:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8701141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Dean had known going in that it wasn't going to be easy, that it was going to hurt.  Doing the right thing always did.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).

Dean had known going in that it wasn't going to be easy, that it was going to hurt. Doing the right thing always did.

 

Pain wasn't an issue, because he was doing this for Sammy.

 

That was also the reason why Sammy could never know. No one would know, if Dean could help it, and he liked to think he'd learned a trick or two over the years.

* * *

It turned out to be almost heartbreakingly easy. That, right there, should have told him that it was a conditional victory, but once he'd started there was no going back. Sammy, his dad, they both knew that Dean was a smooth talker. Too smooth for his own good, sometimes. But they forgot that his charms weren't always charms, and that reading people didn't just mean being able to tell people what they wanted to hear. Sometimes, it meant being able to say just the wrong thing, at just the “wrong” time.

 

Neither of them made it hard, just as he'd known they wouldn't. Sammy was just shy of eighteen, confident and belligerent and chafing hard under their father's rules. Their father could never be accused of treating either of them with kid gloves, but all the same, Sammy had damn near rubbed himself raw trying to prove himself fit to go on a hunt with Dean and only Dean. Their father had very carefully been ignoring the signs, so Sammy had lashed out the only way he could – burying himself deeper and deeper in his studies, muttering that hunting was a waste of time so that their father wouldn't know how much the refusal hurt.

 

Dean knew the day the letter arrived. Hell, he'd been the one to bring it in. Their dad had been off dealing with a poltergeist just far enough away to mean separate hotels, so Dean had seen the guilty look on Sammy's face in response to a questioning look. There had been a long and decidedly uncomfortable moment, and then Dean had swallowed the million things that were caught just behind his tongue and ruffled his brother's hair. “Good on you, Sammy.”

 

It was the only time he'd ever spoken in favor of the application.

* * *

Two weeks of carefully planned off-hand comments, poor advice, and vaguely worded opinions were all it took to destroy the family unit he'd spent 17 years fighting tooth and nail to keep together.

 

With ten words, John Winchester finished what Dean had begun, even if he would never know the truth of it.

 

“If you leave now, Sam, don't you ever come back.”

* * *

It took Dean two years to let go completely, and another two to admit that he'd never be able to do it.

~ Finis ~


End file.
